Before the Mast
by Wildhorses1492
Summary: A thousand years is a long time to live. "She is wild, spirited, free, and sings to my soul in a manner I would be foolish to ignore." Arran is a Star, a Narnian, and a sailor. He was a sailor when Susan visited Calormen, and long before Prince Caspian became a king. He's a free spirit, and has seen many a thing. These are his tales of a life before the mast. (Connected one-shots)


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_The faintly glowing young man with the long blond hair glanced toward him and smiled. For a moment, Caspian felt something familiar about him, but dismissed it as the feeling faded. Caspian brushed with Narnians before, but a child's memory is like a dream, returning only faintly and hardly trustworthy enough to be relied upon; it is more fleeting than a man's. ~ **exerpt from** **Star Crossed, book one of the Star Cycle**_

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A hooded figure stood in the shadows of the great Telmarine palace, near where the royal garden wall met the unyielding grey stone of the castle walls. A great rose tree shaded him, its heavy red blooms bobbing in the light Narnian breezes of late spring.

With caution the figure took in the gardens full of beautiful flowers, grass, and multiple trees. A soft smile came to the figure's face, swathed in shadow beneath the hood, as he noticed many trees he had smuggled into Narnia from the Seven Isles. For the Telmarine Queen, a native of those sun-lit shores.

Her husband, the king, loved her dearly; as if he felt he must prove these affections constantly, he gave her this garden upon the eve of their wedding. And at any opportunity he found he bestowed upon her plants and trees to put within it. But to obtain such vegetation, he had needed a Narnian smuggler willing to import the flowers and trees and shrubs. (For Narnians were the only ones who knew well of the plants. Many Telmarines did not bother themselves.)

Though it was claimed that the Narnians had been destroyed down to the last barbarian babe, such was not so, and the king knew it. But no Narnian smuggler would dare work with the Telmarine king, ruler of a race the Narnians considered barbaric and backwards just as the Telmarines claimed _them_ to be. The Narnian smugglers feared being imprisoned and tortured to give up where the Resistance hid, biding its time until The Four were called back to Narnia to restore a just and noble rule.

This hooded person was the only Narnian who dared come forth, with good reason. He knew ways to bind the Telmarine king to secrecy and force him to swear to things no other smuggler could.

The Deep Magic was unbreakable, and his heritage gave him access to such great power. To swear by it was a lasting bind, and the smuggler knew it. Which gave him cause to smile though he stood so near to imprisonment and death.

His long life had taught him much; manipulation and cunning were among his acquired skills.

He stiffened, and his eyes roved the garden paths he could see from where he stood when he heard the queen's voice calling out with merriment and a small spring of a familiar anxiety. Well he knew such a tone, and for a moment yearned to visit his mother, though he felt with certainty he would be less than well-received.

"Where are you? Come back to me, my darling!"

A child's hardly-contained giggle came from behind him, though more to his left. His head turned, the folds of the dark hood slacking and billowing with his movements. A young boy crouched behind a lilac bush almost quenched of life beside the ancient rose tree towering above it, staking fiercer claim over the sunlight and rain needed to nourish and grow.

"Are you hiding from Mama too?" the child whispered, his dark brown eyes expressing his contentment and happiness openly, as such dark eyes are wont to do. The breeze brushed over the two hiders; it was cool in the dappled shade. Overhead, the leaves and rose blooms rustled, and the little boy's thick black hair curled at his neck and tumbled into his eyes.

The Queen called again, and the hooded figure's head jerked to see how close she had come to the place he hid; where he stood waiting for her husband to come and pay him for the shipment of tiger lily bulbs and swanflower plantlings. The child giggled and instantly clapped his small hands over his mouth.

Before he might catch himself, the smuggler looked down and smiled warmly at his people's' bitterest of enemies. The child lowered his hands and smiled back.

The smuggler glanced toward the pathways, but did not see the Queen. He bent, his lithe form crouching down beside the young Telmarine easily. Efficiently but carefully, he held out his hands and removed the gloves he wore, the child watching curiously.

Then, he looked at the boy. "I shall show you something, would it interest you?" He smiled, though inwardly cursed himself for such actions. The boy nodded, black locks falling into his face once more. Without thinking, the smuggler reached out and pushed the hair from the child's tanned face.

"Watch with care, little one," he whispered enticingly, a grin slipping onto his lips out of old habit.

The pale, glittering magic drifted up from his palm, giving a little light to the shadows they hid in, and it lit the contours of the young Telmarine's face. The child laughed, but quickly quieted, and lifted his head to look about for his mother.

"What are you?" There was no terror dripping from his words, only pure, innocent curiosity. Sadness grasped at the smuggler's heart, and he silenced his magic, slipping his gloves back over his faintly shining hands. He choked down a curse at his stupidity that balanced upon his tongue, for the child's sake. He knew that to use his magic was to stir his heritage and cause it to show on his appearance. Yet still, he could not seem to regret what he had done.

"A wish, child. A dream and a wish. You shall perhaps never hear of me in your life. Now go, your mother calls and it is a bad thing to frighten mothers, for they love us so." He tried to seem reprimanding, but he knew his tone merely sounded comradely. He stood, looking back to the paths, and could just see the Queen's face over the leafy boxwood's as she stood near a stone bench some yards away, searching with a slightly frantic expression upon her face.

He stiffened, fear for a moment coming over him, when a hand slipped into his gloved one. He looked down, and some of his pale gold hair fell from the hood. The child stood beside him and a little to his front, as if making to depart.

"Goodbye, wish," the little boy whispered, taking his hand from the smuggler's gloved one and running back into the light.

Sorrow seeped into his soul as the smuggler took in the Telmarine's words. Truly, there were many dreams and wishes that had been bid goodbye since such cruel people as the child's ancestors had taken Narnia from those to whom it rightfully belonged.

The smuggler studied the boy as the child ran down the path, never looking back to the rose tree or the shadowed figure who stood beneath its branches. How could such innocence become such hate? What bred malice and spite? He silenced his thoughts, watching the Queen's face become awash with relief and joy at the sight of her son.

"Oh, Caspian! I worried so; you mustn't run from me again, even here in the garden. There are dangers you do not know of, lurking in both the sun and the shadow," she murmured, picking up her boy. The smuggler watched her hold her offspring close in her arms, and smiled at the truth of her words.

"How little you know of the world, Queen Sybella." the smuggler whispered softly as another Narnian breeze swept over the rose tree, shedding some of its petals, dropping them in front of his sight, reminding him of something from a dream.

His ire heightened as he waited for the king. At last, he could wait no more, night coming on and the garden abandoned. He gazed out at the landscape bathed in the light of a full moon, silver and soft. The smuggler stepped out of the shadows and gazed up into the sky, his hood so heavy it did not fall from his head.

The stars reflected in his pale blue eyes, and for a moment, bitter longing filled his gaze. Then, he looked about him and with some softly whispered words, a faint red glow issued up from the ground near his boots, enveloped him, and he vanished.

Faintly on the wind, a scream of anguish drifted through the garden, and not long after the silence filtered behind it, a woman's hollow cry rang out over the Telmarine castle, filled with grief.

"The King is dead!"

None but the bobbing rose tree stood watch in the garden to receive the dreadful news.

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**A/N: **

**Wow, it's been SO LONG since I've written a review for something for Narnia! I have to admit, I really miss it. Anyway, I've decided to rewrite BTM, since I've thought of a better way to do it (and also I'd like to finish this story.) Since currently I can't seem to write anything with linear chapters, I'll write interconnecting one-shots that aren't exactly all in order. I've been wanting to write this interaction between Arran and a four-year-old Caspian for a long time, but I never got very far with the chaptered version of BTM to do so, so I wrote this one-shot off the notes I'd written ages ago, and decided to post it FINALLY! :) **

**Queen Sybella is Caspian's mother's name in my AU (long story made short: I wrote out a timeline for my Narnian AU and gave a whole bunch of names to people in the past who didn't have names, so that I can mention them in passing in my AU without having to sit for days coming up with a good Telmarine or Narnia name.) Don't worry, I kept all my names and dates in canon! (I'm very careful to ensure that all my Narnian writing in my AU doesn't change any of C.S. Lewis' _Chronicles._ Though, I DO fool around with the ages, and usually go with the movie versions for personal reasons. **

**Thanks for reading, I hope to have another one-shot out soon, perhaps involving Arran meeting Reepicheep, perhaps involving Arran first becoming a sailor (which happened BEFORE Jadis overtook Narnia, so, fun stuff right there! :))**

**I'm rewriting the Star Cycle, and trying to make all the dates and ages correlate, so in BTM there will be all the correct details; which means it may contradict the Cycle. :( But, soon everything shall be ironed out! **

**This fanfic was written for WriterfromWarDrobe (previously known to me as ILoveFanfiction, an amazingly sweet and encouraging reviewer!) who loved my rascally Arran Greenwood so much that she thought he deserved some backstories of his own.**

**Happy reading, please review, **

**WH**


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